


Pilgrims

by melliyna



Category: American Actor RPF, West Wing
Genre: Acting, Character Study, M/M, Multi, Word Play, Wordcount: 100-1.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-09
Updated: 2010-04-09
Packaged: 2017-10-08 19:30:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/78783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/melliyna/pseuds/melliyna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Writing is the strength of any project. If the script isn`t good, then you`ll be doing a cellophane job from day one, patching it up, trying to cover all the holes (Patrick Stewart). Sam Seaborn, Toby Ziegler and a TV show starring Thomas Gibson.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pilgrims

**Author's Note:**

  * For [raedbard](https://archiveofourown.org/users/raedbard/gifts).



**Title:** Pilgrims  
**Author:**   
**Fandoms:** West Wing, Actor RPF  
**Pairings:** Toby/Sam  
**Word Count:** 1,000  
**Rating:** PG  
**Warnings:** Contains some slight meta about acting.  
**Disclaimer:** I do not know, own or have any knowledge of Thomas Gibson. This depiction is based on media appearances. It did not happen. All the mentioned West Wing characters belong to Aaron Sorkin, NBC and their respective actors. Written for fun, not for profit.  
**Author's Note:** The name of the main character is taken as a mash-up of a couple of the real passengers on _The Mayflower_. No historical figures were otherwise harmed.  
**Dedication:** For on the occasion of hir birthday. I hope you enjoy the gift my friend! And with special thanks to to whom the idea of building on Sam, Toby and the Pilgrim TV show owes its origin.

 

Thomas isn't as still as you'd think, but he's about as shy. He smiles beautifully, when not performing. That's when that hint of twang comes in to it and you can still watch in awe, however long you've been in this business when someone can slip in out of another person and remain in the same body. They switch between, but elements of each remain. Thomas has James' decency and sense of family. And James'? How does James Issac Allerton reflect Thomas. It's an ongoing question to unravel. Their leading man will talk of influences in interviews, of the gift of the script and the ways it makes it easy for him.

If their partnership bought these words to the screen, then it is Thomas who gives them tangible reality. He even makes the hats seem plausible, logical, the kind of hats that had actually been worn by people who had lived, breathed, dreamed and died. You make me think of Pilgrims' who washed dishes and may have secretly moaned about having to get up so early, Sam had said at the read through and he'd gotten a blush out of their star. His and Toby's character, given life and flesh in this charming Texan who inhabitants that space that actors love, when the words are something like music and you can think about the transformation in to someone else.

And it's a strange thing to see Thomas return, when you call cut. Toby had been the one to decide on him because if Sam is the one who came up with the idea, Toby is the big picture, the details guy who fills in the pieces that make this a living work with dishes, costumes and hats in the way he made grand speeches resonate because he could capture the policy detail (and there Sam goes again with the political references. It's an old habit, even if Toby teases him that TV writing isn't saving the world, it's just entertaining it along the way).

When he does trauma, he is simply a broken man. And then somewhere, Thomas appears again, all smiles as his body changes back. The tears are wiped away and Sam never gets over it - watching his actor (his and Toby's) come back. Not surprisingly, he talks about his children when asked but Thomas never really volunteers the photographs or the little stories to either him or Toby. It doesn't quite work like that, which is fair enough but Sam finds himself wondering, as he watches him slip in and out of skins, who the Thomas Gibson who goes home to Texas is and if he's ever going to find him.

Thomas' hands are different than James are and Sam pays attention to that, the way he pays attention to Toby's hands and the way they move on him or just in the way he puts words to a page or throws a ball against a wall or holds Huck or Molly and they are a family, on weekends and vacations. He alternates taking Molly to see the sites, to games and eventually to ballet classes and he and Toby make a pact to teach them both to drive and the way you cheer for the Yankees. Sam starts to stick photos of them around his desk, alongside bright crayon drawings and stories that Huck gives him and Thomas smiles.

When Huck and Molly visit, he's very good with them in a way that shouldn't surprise Sam, though the odd pang he gets when he sees that Thomas does not smile at him the way he does at them is perhaps not so expected and neither is the expression Toby wears, which contains something of the same because they've found their character but the actor is not known to them. They do not really know his smiles or the way he moves, just the expression he gives to the character. All Sam Seaborn really knows is that he flies back to Texas every week, the same way Sam knows he and Toby still feel the draw to DC even as the show gains momentum and success. Somehow, the applause feels different though the reviews, as Toby remarks archly, tend to be more positively inclined than they used to be back in the Washington days.

Thomas makes him think about partnership and how it works. Toby was one the who'd decided on him - Sam hadn't known how to decide because while he had the world in his head, translating it outside his head was still, is still sometimes a clunky thing when it comes to television. They both argue over the words of the script or really, banter in bed or crowded on to a couch or an office and sometimes, kissing amongst the piles of paper and then Sam writes with the scratchy feeling of Tobys' beard against his skin and it's right, really.

They both keep watching Thomas, for a glimpse of him when he isn't James and both are comforted that it is hard, for both of them.


End file.
